Wake

Take him and lay him out on the tall trestles
Put him in the shop window
For passing trade to see
Maybe some use can yet be made of him
I won’t dirty my hands with the details
Some words cannot be retracted
I’ll just say that he was here and now is gone
On twenty one occasions I asked for his forgiveness
He just shrugged his shoulders and slouched away
“No”, was all he said
Come on girl – no use moping after him
His journey is over now
But ours is just begun.
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Blackened

When did we learn how to hate?
Was it incremental
Like the constant drip, drip, drip
Of a leaking faucet
Delivering the droplets of hurt and humiliation
That gradually painted our hearts black?
Was it as sudden as the illumination of betrayal
The spike of ice cold acid in the veins
The shock of the inevitable,
The realisation of all our fears?
Or was it always there
Carried within
Before it ever had a name?
.

Sunny Side Up

it’s been a thin time all round
inky black and such
hard graft for the crooked
a long stretch for the touched
the good people of the parish
shell a little corn into my cup
but it’s one of those deals
where you fight for your meals
it’s not all sunny side up
.

Scream

This writing is futile
I can’t express how I feel
Not in so many words
I’d like to take my pain
Roll it into a ball
And stuff it down your throat
So you’d be mute like me
Your seams leaking
Blotting your copy book
With a silent crimson scream
.

Speed Bomb

awkward high <> like a speed bomb that went down the wrong way <> all new oblique angles <> strange dimensions and hollows <> each crevice a new expression in feeling <> strange there should be new situations to chart <> this late in the game <> a familiar sickly taste <> with a different flavour <> impossible to quantify <> pleasure and pain <> this knife cuts both ways <> unease has become an art form <> the pool is still <> but under lurks <> a drowning <> a car crash <> a train wreck <> a fucking catastrophe <> if it’s true <> it’s not true <> but what if it is true? <> get a grip <> your morbid imagination will be the death of you <> that which you fear <> you draw to you <> you have to reach for the man within <> or be the man without <> keep a sceptical eye on the bad news <> favour the good thing <> catch that positive curve <> slide in under the barriers <> when the bogey man looks away

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